Dear Croppie: Was 2025 The Year Of The Weave?
It seems Team Ten Watt photographer of choice Billy Breen has been talking nonsene. We were sent a screenshot of him proclaiming the 2025 season ‘will be remembered for the weaves and makers mark’, together with a question: Will 2025 be remembered as the year of the weave?
Okay, it’s a little different to Breen’s direct statement, but the two overlap (as for the ‘makers mark’ we have no idea what Breen is on about given we’ve seen one knot in crop, far fewer than what we’ve seen in other years). So, let’s look at the statistics:
We’ve been back through the archives of the Crop Circle Connector since the appearance of the very first ‘basket weave’ crop circle at Bishops Cannings in 1999.
On a year by year basis, these are all the examples of a ‘woven’ effect that we have found (we’ve excluded the lay effects from circles such as Silbury Hill (2009), the Alton Barnes Owl (2009) and Guys Cliffe House (2010) given that they don’t show a ‘weave’):
- 1999
6 August: Bishops Cannings, Wiltshire - 2000
12 July: Adam’s Grave, Alton Barnes, Wiltshire - 2009
14 July: East Field, Alton Barnes, Wiltshire - 2011
25 July: Etchilhampton, Wiltshire
15 August: Jubilee Plantation, Cherhill, Wiltshire - 2012
5 August: Milk Hill, Stanton St Bernard, Wiltshire
26 August: Hackpen Hill, Wiltshire - 2013
19 August: Etchilhampton, Wiltshire - 2014
22 July: Barnsley, Gloucestershire
26 July: Quenington, Gloucestershire
27 July: Cherington, Gloucestershire - 2015
3 August: Etchilhampton, Wiltshire
9 August: Fox Hill, Liddington, Wiltshire - 2016
8 August: Etchilhampton, Wiltshire - 2017
19 July: Atherington, West Sussex
5 August: Rollright Stones, Oxfordshire - 2018
2 June: Baunton, Gloucestershire
26 July: Chesterton Windmill, Warwickshire
29 July: Hackpen Hill, Wiltshire - 2019
21 June: Sparticles Wood, Netherme on the Hill, Surrey
11 August: Preston Candover, Hampshire
24 August: Stanton St Bernard, Wiltshire - 2021
2 July: Avebury, Wiltshire
15 August: Roundway Hill, Devizes, Wiltshire - 2023
30 July: Kitts Lane, West Meon, Hampshire - 2025
15 June: Kingsdon, Somerset
6 July: Littleton, Somerset
10 July: Cerne Abbas, Dorset
Here’s your answer based on raw statistics; 2025 was no more the year of the ‘weave’ than 2014, 2018 or 2019. We don’t even think 2025 will be remembered for the ‘weave’ or the ‘makers mark’ apart from inside one particular, otherwise empty head. We know what it will be remembered for, but we will save that for our end of season write-up.
If there is a ‘weave’ that will be remembered, it’s the insane original at Bishops Cannings in 1999. Shamefully, Matthew Williams claimed responsibility for it, rendering it a hoax, even though it wasn’t his to claim ownership for. We’re also massive fans of the large, extremely tidy ‘woven’ border at the 2012 ‘cube’ underneath Hackpen Hill, whilst the ‘weave’ accompanying the five-pointed star at Cherington (2014) was intense.
